Tortured Comfort
by Weaver Chance
Summary: Just some random thing that came to me today so I thought I'd see how it turned out. 'They all knew that he didn't have very long when he colapsed on his way to lunch.'


**Hey just a quick oneshot that popped into my mind, please read it and tell me what you think!**_Tortured Comfort_

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The Black Order had lost its' sense of comfort, but not in a battle, no the comfort was lost because of time running out.

The first to notice the events leading up to this loss would also be the last to speak of it.  
Next was Bookman and Lavi, but as they were both bookmen they to said nothing.  
When Kanda noticed though, people began to realise something was wrong, he had started calling Allen by name for one thing and Allen himself was putting away twice the food in half the time. Ofcourse, it wasn't until Allen started _shrinking_ that they began to guess just what it was that _was_ wrong.

Allen Walker's time was running out, and everyone could almost see it happening before their eyes.

Some of the exorcists began to avoid him, knowing that his comforting presense would not be there much longer and they wanted to make sure that they'd be up to going on without that comfort.  
Lenalee was incredibly angry at him for not saying anything about it but somehow couldn't bring herself to voice her complaint whenever she saw him dragging his now frail form about headquarters(he'd pratically worn a trail in the floor between his room and the dining hall that Miranda found herself using as a reference whenever she got lost).

They all knew that he didn't have very long when he colapsed on his way to lunch.

Lenalee stood by his open coffin, her vision watery from eyes streaming almost like taps. She knew that some people were relieved that they no longer had to worry about The 14th, and some disappointed at the loss of a fully functional Ark, and still others that the comfort that his cursed vision afforded them was gone. She herself felt all of it to a minor degree, the part she found herself most distressed about was actually the absense of his smile, not that she'd been able to admit it to anyone other than herself.  
As she watched Allen's still form through her hazy eyes she witnessed something amazing; His left arm began collapsing in on itself and his body trembled.  
When the movement calmed his cursed eye activated and lay unmoving over his left eye, its' silver gear shaped rim now had a greenish cast to it like that of Innocence.  
Everyone present watched on in astonishment when Lenalee leant over the coffin and placed a kiss against his cold lips before lifting away the monocle.  
She stood and with a tear-filled smile placed the monocle over her own left eye. A gasp escaped her when the smaller gear turned and sank into her temple, and thus the Crowned Clown became the Guardian Eye and the Tortured Comfort.

"Hey there, Lenalee," a vanished vocie spoke "I've gone on ahead to make a home for us on the over side, but because of how I died let me leave this echo behind," he laghed humourlessly "Much like how Mana left his own echo with me... Anyway I'm sorry I didn't tell you this while I was alive but-"  
"Allen..." she whispered and everyone looked at her with worry as a sparkling green tear trickled down her left cheek.  
Allen's echo looked at all the worried glances she was receiving, sighed then made a gesture allowing the soul-sight to spread and then gave everyone an amused grin when they caught sight of his echo floating a few inches off the ground. He flipped upside down, keeping his head at the same level and then waved to them all.

Weeks later Lenalee was granted the title of General due to the sheer power just one of her Innocence brought to the field and she now had two. She'd made a deal with Allen's echo that if he'd stay with her she wouldn't do anything to hasten to see what sort of home Allen was preparing for her in heaven but rather try to prolong their reunion, his echo seemed to think that would make it sweeter but Lenalee was still doubtful.  
As a General she was now fairly nomadic, and almost always on missions.  
"So explain to me again just why you renamed Crowned Clown to Tortured Comfort?" Echo, as she had taken to calling him every now and then, asked her in the middle of a fight. Her current apprentice watched in awe as an empty white cowl with silver mask and black claw fought autonomously beside her, the young boy still couldn't work out why she sometimes talked to herself(she doesn't use the vision when teaching apprentices because they must learn to work without its' presense so he doesn't know about the echo) or why she'd say things about 'Allen' and 'Echo'.  
"I renamed it that because when ever I see it I feel both Tortured and Comforted." this her student partially understood considering the number of times that cowl had saved him while Lenalee was distracted by something else he found its' presense to be comforting himself but he had no idea how seeing it could be like torture, maybe he'd ask her, or maybe someone else as Lenalee could be very frightening at times.  
"I see... I never did get to deliver his final message to you, did I?" Echo commented.  
"No, I don't believe you did." Lenalee replied as she de-activated the dark boots and watched the empty form of the Crowned Clown/Tortured Comfort disappear.  
"It was 'I love you, Lenalee' and 'I'm sorry'."  
"I love you too, Allen..." Lenalee spoke softly as once again a glittering green tear rolled down her left cheek. Her pupil looked on in surprise both at the tear and her words and he resolved to ask someone else about this 'Allen' when they were next at HQ.


End file.
